LATEST ADDITIONS

HiFiNews | Jul 25, 2022

Advance tickets are now on sale for the UK's premier high-end audio event – The UK Hi-Fi Show Live, hosted at the Ascot Racecourse Grandstand, High Street, Ascot on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th September 2022.

Loudspeakers

Mission 770 Loudspeaker

Review: Mark Craven, | Jul 25, 2022

Launched 44 years ago, the original 770 loudspeaker with its polypropylene woofer and white baffle was nothing if not controversial. Will the reimagined 770 also make waves?

Hi-fi's 'subjective' revolution was just picking up steam when Mission's 770 shovelled a heap of coal on the fire in 1978. The move away from heavy plastics (Bextrene) was reflected in its polypropylene bass/mid driver while the light but rigid ply cabinet doffed its cap to earlier BBC-inspired designs. Its sound, meanwhile, provoked more column inches over the years than possibly any speaker since! The 770 received a very favourable review in Hi-Fi News [HFN Mar '79, 'Milestones' HFN Aug '12 and 'From the Vault' HFN Dec '15] but, writing elsewhere, a fledgling author by the name of Ken Kessler was, shall we say, less enthusiastic...

News

UK Hi-Fi Show Live Preview #1

HiFiNews | Jul 22, 2022

Last hosted at the prestigious Ascot Grandstand in 2019, the UK's dedicated high-end audio show returns in 2022 with the 'who's who' of world-class hi-fi.

Pre/Power Amplifiers

Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista kWP and kW Amplifiers

Review: Ian Harris, | Jul 22, 2022 | First Published: Aug 01, 2003

Ian Harris and Paul Miller hear the amps that crown MF's 20th anniversary

The kW and kWP are the final models in Musical Fidelity's 20th anniversary Tri-Vista series, and are intended to be the ultimate expression of the company's skills as amplifier builders. In contrast to the nominally 'real world' SACD player and integrated amp, the pre and power amps have been built on a totally cost-no-object basis – to borrow MF's own words, they're 'simply the very best we can do'.

Headphones

Astell&Kern A&ultima SP2000T Digital Audio Player

Review: Jamie Biesemans, | Jul 21, 2022

The game of one-upmanship between portable headphone DACs and DAPs continues with Astell&Kern's 'triple amp' SP2000T featuring a KORG Nutube for 'tube warmth'

Far from listening rooms filled with huge monoblocks and heavier-than-a-grown-man loudspeakers, a few brands are catering to another class of enthusiast by taking the concept of a digital audio player (DAP) to new heights. Astell&Kern, a spin-off from Korea's iRiver, crafts very sophisticated pocket hi-fi that's light years removed from the humble iPod.

Vinyl Release

Pharoah Sanders: Africa (180g vinyl)

Steve Sutherland | Jul 19, 2022

This album from the pioneer of 'spiritual jazz' combines his tenor sax tone and unique technique with a masterful backing band. Steve Sutherland hears the 180g reissue

True story: one recent Sunday afternoon I was hanging out in Just Dropped In, Coventry's finest independent record store, when Alun the owner popped a record on. Within the next 20 minutes or so I counted four customers strolling over to the desk to enquire the genesis of the music we were all enjoying. The four customers were all very different: one was a teenage girl resplendent in Goth array, one was a rockabilly dude, one was a tweedy teacher sort, and one was a gnarly old bloke. Okay, the gnarly old bloke was me.

Integrated Amplifiers

Synthesis Metropolis NYC 200i Integrated Amplifier

Review: Ken Kessler, | Jul 18, 2022

Flagship of this Italian brand's trilogy of tube amps, the Metropolis NYC 200i occupies a huge footprint and mercilessly sucks power from the wall. But the music is magic...

Is it unkind to suggest some Italian brand names do not carry convincingly into English? Who keeps a straight face with a cooker called 'SMEG'? As for Synthesis – which also has the appropriately named Roma range – choosing to dub its Metropolis integrated amplifiers 'NYC', because New York is a Metropolis, actually makes sense, I suppose.

Inside the Studio

RCA Studio B

Steve Sutherland | Jul 15, 2022

Elvis, The Everly Brothers, Dolly Parton, Jim Reeves... Steve Sutherland tells the story of the home of a thousand hits – the recording studio that gave birth to the Nashville Sound

Dolly was in one heck of a hurry. She was running late for a recording session and if there was one thing that Dolly wasn't ever, it was late. Not only that, this was her debut appointment at Nashville's RCA Studios and she didn't want them thinking bad of her for being tardy.

Loudspeakers

Perlisten S4b Loudspeaker

Review: Mark Craven, | Jul 14, 2022

Having wowed us with its flagship S7t floorstanders, Perlisten is looking to do more of the same with its DPC driver tech pressed into a more modest, room-friendly cabinet

Perlisten Audio, a newly arrived loudspeaker manufacturer from Wisconsin, US, has already made an impressive entrance with its flagship model, the seven-driver S7t floorstander [HFN Apr '22]. Yet as that speaker boasts a £16,000 price tag – and a 59kg cabinet – many newcomers to the brand will look elsewhere in the range to see how far their budget can stretch. The £7200 S4b auditioned here isn't exactly 'affordable' but does come with a more manageable bookshelf build, plus the promise of a high-end performance similar to that of its towering stablemate, by virtue of shared technologies.

Integrated Amplifiers Vintage

Sansui AU-D33 Integrated Amplifier

Review: Tim Jarman, | Jul 12, 2022

Not only did this '80s amp claim to tackle distortion using the company's new 'Super Feedforward System', it was also priced to have mass appeal. How does it sound today?

When the Sansui AU-D33 integrated amplifier was launched in 1982, it had a lot to live up to. Its predecessor, the AU-317II from 1980 [HFN Jun '15], delivered the sort of performance one would expect from a manufacturer of specialist hi-fi, thanks to its well engineered DC-coupled circuitry. The company's 'All hi-fi, everything hi-fi' slogan set out a clear manifesto – no transistor radios, no coffee machines, just quality audio products.

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